While known conventional vehicle closure members, such as vehicle doors, are attached to a vehicle body, the closure members are not structurally integrated with the vehicle body. Consequently, the closure members, which are of considerable mass, are simply hanging on the vehicle body. Thus, stiffness and overall strength of the vehicle body is reduced, which results in a noticeable feeling to a vehicle occupant of shuddering and bouncy ride. Idle shake may also be experienced, along with an increase in noise and vibration, producing a poor ride and poor vehicle handling. Further, in the event of impact or collision with other vehicles, a non-integrated closure member can "pop out" from the vehicle body, or cave in, such that the closure member is separated from its attachment points. Separation of the closure member from the vehicle body causes loss of a significant amount of energy absorption that is necessary to protect the vehicle occupants from injury during a collision.
To address these problems, it has been previously proposed to structurally integrate a vehicle door with a vehicle body. The door and body integration technology as applied to vertically sliding doors is disclosed in the following U.S. Patents issued to John A. Townsend: U.S. Pat. No. 4,801,172 issued Jan. 31, 1989; U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,282 issued Jul. 10, 1990; U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,036 issued Jan. 3, 1995; and applied to a conventional hinged door in U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,917 issued Sep. 15, 1998. These disclosures are incorporated herein by reference.
In operation, when the vehicle doors of the above patents are closed, structural key members formed on the edges of the door engage with mating receptacles formed in the door jambs of the vehicle body that frame a door opening. In the engaged position, each key member and mating receptacle pair is able to transmit compressive, tensile and torsional forces between the door and the vehicle body, thereby contributing to the overall stiffness of the vehicle body.
However, with current technology precise manufacturing dimensional tolerances of a large closure member, such as the vehicle door, that incorporate the structural keys and receptacles are difficult to achieve such that when the vehicle door is aligned with the vehicle body by adjusting hinges and latches on the vehicle door and vehicle body, the keys and receptacles are not always properly aligned for mating engagement. To insure proper alignment of the keys and receptacles, it has been proposed to form the receptacles so as to be considerably larger than the keys. With such an arrangement, the keys could be loosely accommodated within the receptacles once the closure member had been adjusted into its correct position with respect to the vehicle body by means of the hinge and latch assemblies. Fast curing metallic epoxy resin was then applied to the inside of the receptacles and a resist compound to the keys. The closure member was then closed in its final adjustment position with reference to the vehicle body. After curing, the keys were mated precisely with the key impressions made in the resin within the receptacles. Once the keys and receptacles were properly aligned, the keys and receptacles provided an excellent structural link between the closure member and the vehicle body, due to the precise fit of the keys with the epoxy filled receptacle.
However, the addition of the epoxy resin to the receptacles required an additional alignment process on the production line, thereby disadvantageously increasing manufacturing time, which translates into increased costs. Further, as it is necessary to add the epoxy resin to the receptacles on the production line, the alignment of the structural keys and receptacles could not be performed by outside suppliers.
Another disadvantage associated with known structural keys and receptacles is that closure members and door jambs are traditionally manufactured by stamping metal of a constant gage, such that the thickness of the closure member and the door jamb are constant. Consequently, to successfully design the keys and receptacles into a closure member and vehicle body, the area around the keys and receptacles require considerable localized re-enforcing by adding additional metal of a heavier gage, thereby increasing production costs.
While prior art use of the closure member and vehicle body integration technology improves the structural integrity of the overall vehicle body structure, there are disadvantages with the known use of structural keys and mating receptacles. Therefore, there exists a need for improved structural integration of a vehicle closure member and vehicle body that eliminates special alignment and the reinforcing steps while introducing a new metal epoxy technology in the manufacturing process.